FUN DAY

Joanne and I had a fun day today.  Our plans were to check out the driftwood on Tunnel Lake via Footprint Lake Road.  We hadn't been down that trail in a while and it proved to be an exciting ride.  We accessed it from the Axe Lake connection which was in pretty good shape.  The water levels were low so we were able to walk along the shore and check out the drift wood pieces.  We both found some and attached them to our bikes by the ever handy bungee cords.  We cast in a few lines and Joanne got a few nibbles but that was it.  On our way out we encountered 4 Partridges - and me without my gun.  But the season doesn't start until September 15th so these guys were safe.  Also along the trail we came across a big pile of semi-fresh bear poop with no seeds in it.  Joanne put her boot there for a size comparison.  We quickly left that area.
It was a beautiful day for a ride.  We decided to save the pink rock and Snowshoe fishing for when Susan gets here.  She has to have some fun too.

I notice my timer on the camera is off by a couple of hours - I will have that fixed for the next time.

THE BIRTHDAY BOYS

August 27th and these little boys are four years old!!  How time flies!
They have brought such joy to our lives and it is hard to imagine our lives without them.
Even tho they live so far away and we don't get to see them as often as we would like, they are in our hearts and thoughts always.

Happy Birthday Monty Moo and Charlie Barley.  We love you.

IT REALLY IS ALL FUN AND GAMES

I headed over to Joanne and Mitch's today and ran into the Axe Lake Road Crew.  They were hard at work raking the road.  A few weeks ago they had removed a bunch of stones that seem to grow over the winter.  Good Job Guys!!

Barry built his new deer blind when he was up here this summer.  Another condo on stilts.  A great view of the surrounding area.  I bet he gets one this year - I hope!!

Barry and Sandy caught some nice bass out of Cheney.  We invited them over so that they could catch some "bigger" fish than what they had been catching.   They were happy.

And it has been very dry here and when that happens, we get the fire hose out and water down the surrounding area.  Rick was on hose duty here.  We finally got rain and they did lift the fire ban, but in my opinion, it is too early.  The bush is still very dry.

And today's adventure was retrieving a beautiful pudding stone boulder we found the other day.  Joanne, Mitch and myself successfully transferred the treasure without injury to human or bike or trailer.  We had to use our winches to coax the rock onto the trailer and from then on it was smooth sailing.  After some power washing the stone should be a masterpiece and a beautiful addition to Joanne's collection.  

It was fun!!

And finally, I made my BBQ sauce a few weeks ago and then made some relish and finally, for the first time, I made pickles!!  The recipe was called bucket pickles and with Joanne's help, I made enough for her and I to last a few months.  And they were delicious!!

FINALLY IN PLACE

Better late than never.  After sleeping in the trailer for a month in our driveway when the kids were here, we finally got the trailer up to our spot at Hinkler.  Ron and Mary's trailer was already in place for a couple of weeks.  We set it up and made sure it was level and everything was in working order.  We won't stay overnite for a while yet but we are ready at a moments notice.  Bird season doesn't open until September 15th.
The picture of the big toad that greeted us upon our arrival.  He was big.  Good thing he quickly hopped to safety or he would have been squished.

PUDDING STONE ADVENTURE

Finally on August 16th I was able to get away with Joanne on a quad adventure to hunt down some new pudding stone.  Joan wanted one so that was our excuse.  We had planned on also hitting the pink rock and do some fishing but by the time we got our pudding stone, we were ready to go home.
We got on our way at about 10am and had a nice ride into our spot.  Someone had built a bridge over the stream we had to drive thru before.  It was a good sturdy bridge and we had no problems riding over it.  We quickly found some nice stones and sorted out which ones we liked best.  We saw some big ones that I think we need to blast out of there.  But that won't ever happen.  One the way we found some amazing blackberry patches - they were everywhere.  We feasted on them.  Always good to get to them before the bears do as evidenced by the big pile of bear poop that was full of berries.  And it looked a bit fresh too.
We take snacks and some beverages and we pulled over in the shade to partake.  It was a hot one and with our long pants and boots on, we were roasting.
We had a good collection so we decided to call it a day around 1pm.  Now that I am feeling better, there is plenty of time to play with my sister and soon to be sisters - when Susan gets here.
BTW my bike runs great!!!!

NICE EVENING FISHING

A beautiful evening out on Cheney with Rick and Rejean.  Fishing was very good and everyone caught fish - and Rick even caught a branch that he thought was a fish - I know what that is like.
The Bass were all sizes - really big ones, big ones and smaller ones but each of them put up such a good fight.
It was the first time we had really fished the lake - we had taken Monty and charlie out to let them catch some fish but that really didn't count.
It was a very nice evening spent doing something that I love and enjoy so much.

BERRY PICKING JOANNE'S WAY

Sick and tired of being sick and tired, I went out raspberry picking with Joanne this morning.  We left Mitch working on his new wood shed.  He said it was ok for Joanne to have the morning off.
Joanne was anxious to show me her new invention for picking berries.  She strung a shoelace through a plastic shopping bag and tied it around our waists.  That left both our hands free to pick the berries. Genius!!!  And it worked great.  We picked for about an hour before I had to go back home and rest.  It has been a while since I exerted myself this much and I guess I need to work my way back to my normal self.
There were quite a few berries along the trail and lots of muddy puddles from last nite's rain.  I had to hose my bike down when I got back home.
I am going to enjoy my berries this evening and then again tomorrow in my yogurt.  I love raspberries!!!

ALL'S QUIET

The kids have been gone for a full week and left us with such bad colds and great memories.  We both have terrible coughs and can't quite seem to shake them.  A call to the doctor is on the agenda for tomorrow.
But what a great time we had with our visitors.  They are four (on August 27th) and they can talk and you can carry on conversations with them.  They generally do what you ask them to do stop when you ask them to (as opposed to last year when they ran down the drive way toward the road and didn't stop when you yelled for them to stop so you had to run like crazy to stop them before they were smushed on the highway by a big transport truck)  OK  Maybe I imagined the worst but it could have happened.
All is quiet but I miss their little voices and their laughs and Charlie's walrus sounds and Monty's hedgehog chirps.
They are in England now with Dave's parents - oh the fun they must be having...